The sun had just risen when the train, a clattering collection of third-class cars, jangled laboriously over the low elevation on which Alexandria stands. With a series of nerve-racking spasms, it came to a halt on the water-front, where lay several large transports absorbing men, horses and stores.

With some difficulty and many lurid epithets, the troopers slowly disengaged themselves from the unhealthy boxes, and gathered in sleepy groups to await developments, a thing they were in the habit of doing for long periods at a time. Mac and Smoky availed themselves of the first opportune moment, when all who mattered were engaged in calculations and scraps of paper, to disappear in the direction of a small buffet whence came a tempting rattle of crockery and an aroma of tea.

Here, even at this early hour, the good English ladies of Alexandria were dispensing refreshing tea and cakes to the soldiers.

Later they filed on board, and were taken, each unit to its own mess-deck, to deposit their gear. Mac's own troop had just completed the disintegration of themselves and their kit and the satisfactory stowage of it, when it was discovered that they were in the wrong part of the ship. Of course, that sort of thing was only to be expected, but Smoky was particularly annoyed, as he had succeeded in procuring the snuggest corner of the place. So, muttering and growling, they gathered up their goods and chattels, and shoved and groused along crowded alley-ways. Embarkations and disembarkations always were a severe trial of the temper.

They eventually got settled again, and soon divested themselves of unnecessary clothing and equipment. Then Mac and Smoky deemed it the most tactful course to seek a secluded corner of the boat deck, not infested by blustering non-coms, seeking fatigue parties. They proceeded to go to sleep in the shady security of the lee side of a life-boat; but, as ill luck would have it, their own sergeant soon spotted them, and it was useless to pull his leg.

It was a loading fatigue, of course, and they were sent away along the water-front to shove trucks about. They eventually selected one and brought it down alongside their ship. Black, greasy, heavy cooking apparatus it was, which had to be carried up the steep gangways and transported to the bowels of the ship.

During the rest of the day, they mostly slept in quiet corners of the ship.

Soon after dark they sailed. The vessel manoeuvred slowly through the breakwaters, and passed out on the calm waters of the Mediterranean. The low, blacker line of the Egyptian shore grew less distinct, and the numerous lights of the port came closer and closer together, faded into a dim halo and merged at length into the black sweep of the horizon. So passed Egypt from the sight of many; with the gurgling monotone of the propeller, they reeled off the knots of water which separated a past of careless happy-go-lucky days from a future of unfathomable depth.

There were no hammocks nor bunks on board the Grantully Castle. Either it was not considered necessary that soldiers should sleep or else, perhaps, that they were not at all particular. Anyhow there were worse places than hard decks to sleep on. Mac and Smoky scorned the fuggy atmosphere of the lower decks, and proceeded to select a breezy spot on the after boat-deck. They loosened the canvas cover of a lifeboat, levelled oars and other prominent obstacles, and disposed their scanty bedding to the best possible advantage on this uneven ground. The experiment was not altogether an unqualified success and minor disadvantages made themselves apparent during the passage of the night. The oars were rigid and uneven, and the breeze and the cold penetrated from both above and below. Still they stuck it out, and for the most part slept.

The following day fled by speedily and uneventfully. All gear was overhauled and guards were mounted; spare time was passed in gambling. Those who had money wanted to get rid of it. It was of no more value; in the future it counted for nothing, so large stakes were won and lost. Mac refrained from this indulgence, not that he was a conscientious objector, but, alas, he had no piastres wherewith to beguile the hours. His last two had been burst in one wild rapture on indigestible cake at the ship's canteen.

That night Mac was detailed for ship's guard. His duty it was to stand at the starboard quarter alongside a life-buoy, which he was to hurl at any fool of a trooper who unwittingly fell overboard. He was to report speedily of such affairs as submarines, fires and so forth.

During the long night watches, he forgot, more or less, all about his duty, and meditatively regarded the whirling wave as it seethed away into the darkness. All was silence, except for the mumble, mumble, mumble of the propellers. They were in the AEgean Archipelago and islands passed in an unbroken procession of indistinct shadows. Mac's thoughts were far away, and he was thinking of just such a night off Pelorus Sound, when a "Wake up, old sport! Time's up!" brought him suddenly to the present. He found Smoky had made a comfortable "possie" underneath two lifeboats and was sleeping soundly. He muttered only a few protesting groans on being shoved into his own share of the possie; and soon Mac had joined his cobber in the sound undisturbed slumber of an ordinary trooper.

The next day passed in much the same manner; but, alas, the night—Mac and Smoky were blusteringly ejected from their bivvie by an officious sergeant, who said that the poop boat-deck was holy ground reserved for machine-gunners and men on guard. So they retired to the upper deck, and sought a spot whereon to lay their bones; but the ship was very full, and space limited. In an ill-considered moment they settled down partly under a seat, where passengers had sat in the palmy days of peace, and partly in an open gangway. It proved an evil spot. Each changing guard trod on them, and retreated with awful blasphemy echoing in their ears. Then it chose to thunder, and rain fell in torrents. Not only from the skies, but also from the deck above it came in fountains, until the troopers were wretched in the extreme. There was no refuge whence to flee. Leaving their oil sheets and blankets meant only greater damp, so they stuck it out.

By daylight the rain had lessened, and the troopers, bedraggled and sleepy, disentangled themselves from the sodden blankets, and set about getting things in order. Smoky gathered up the wet clothes and surreptitiously made his way to the engine-room, where he selected a not too conspicuous steam main on which to hang them.

It was a damp grey morning. The vessel was steaming very slowly towards where appeared dimly through the mist a host of vessels of all descriptions, war-ships, transports, hospital ships and small craft. Ahead loomed the land, not very high, and indistinct in the rain.

At last, Gallipoli! The trooper regarded it suspiciously. It looked miserable, and he felt likewise. After the long, bright months in Egypt, the damp penetrated his bones, and he hadn't had breakfast. Anyhow, he supposed it wouldn't be so bad, and went off downstairs for a wash.

When Mac and Smoky, having breakfasted, disentangled themselves from the Bedlam of a troop-deck meal, and gained the upper air, they were in better humour to regard their surroundings from a philosophical, if not an appreciative, standpoint. The depressing drizzle had ceased, the clouds were breaking, and the shore, except for the mist-filled nullahs and the cloud-wrapped Asiatic hills, showed up more clearly in the morning light.

The Grantully had anchored about half a mile from the fort at Seddul Bahr, which with the castle and the village was shattered and forlorn. An untidy medley of tents, mules and stores of all description, covered the seaward slope and the beach to the left. Small craft passed rapidly to the shore from many French and British transports. Great men-o'-war, grey and cold, lay without sign of life; destroyers cruised slowly and meditatively, and pinnaces foamed along in energetic haste.

The two troopers watched the scene with interest. They were still very hazy as to the actual degree of the success of the landing, or really how far across the Peninsula the original force had progressed. The papers said everything had been wonderfully successful, but Mac was rather sceptical. At any rate, they were not wasting any time in pushing the mounted men in as infantry. The future was obscure and uncertain; but, with a feeling of eerie anticipation, he felt the freshness of the dawn of a new mysterious life, when men met men in mortal fight, when the false standards of civilization went to the devil, and man was man. It was good to be alive; to be one of that brigade of fine hefty fellows on the edge of the great adventure, when they would join in the greatest sport on earth.

From across the misty uplands to the north-east, like the crushing of a cart over a gravelly road, came the rattle of musketry fire. Then, as the visibility increased, war-ships manoeuvred into position, and fired slowly and deliberately at unknown inland targets. Occasionally the troop-ship shook from the shattering crash of the Queen Elizabeth's guns. Reflecting was not one of the trooper's habitual occupations; but undoubtedly these first scenes and sounds of the real thing were occasions for thought. A bugle-call for parade cut short further philosophizing, and preparations for disembarkation found him faced with questions far more worthy of mental effort than un-trooper-like sentiments concerning what might or what might not occur in the future. The leading difficulty was, of course, to get twice the permitted amount of equipment into the kit, and some must be discarded. He had two blankets, and decided to dispose of the lighter, then, changing into a clean shirt, he threw away the old one. Everything was finally reduced to the absolute minimum, and packed as neatly as possible in the temporary kit.

* * * * *

Cape Helles was not the destination of the Mounted Rifle Brigade. In mid-afternoon the Grantully, under slow steam, passed northwards along the coast thirteen miles, and dropped anchor again in the middle of another fleet of transports about two miles off Anzac. All traces of the morning gloom had gone; and, to the troopers, accustomed so long to the low, barren sand-dunes of Egypt, these high Gallipoli hills and islands, bathed in the glory of an AEgean evening, brought memories of other coast-lines, Cook Strait maybe, or the Great Barrier.

The fellows crowded along the landward rail, and, with or without glasses, endeavoured to discover battle-signs and the positions of our men. There were across the steep green hillsides several great scars, where the scrub was withered and the bare earth showed; but surely our main line was over that high ridge, for reports stated that the army corps had penetrated several miles. The artillery was awakening to its evening activity, field guns could be seen firing, and shells bursting on high crests. Heavy shells, learned later to be those from the Goeben in the Dardanelles Channel, shrieked occasionally out of the unknown, and sent up great geysers of water near a four-funnelled cruiser to the right. A steady staccato of rifle fire floated faintly from the heights.

The evening shadows deepened to darkness; the stars shone brightly, and against them the land stood in a black, shapeless mass.

Many lights from the bivouacs on the seaward slope gleamed like a miniature Wellington across the water. War seemed difficult to reconcile with so serene and perfect a night.

Two destroyers came alongside, one on the port, the other on the starboard. Struggling with their unwieldy equipment, the troopers filed down the gangways on to them. Mac sat down by the engine-room manhole and listened to great and wonderful stories from the leading stoker of dashes up the Narrows, long patrols in winter storms, and thrilling times during the landing.

They spun away shorewards. The hills loomed blacker overhead and the dim staccato of rifle fire became a ceaseless rattle.

Spent bullets buzzed past and hit the water with a "plop." This was interesting, and, with a thrill of pleasure, Mac felt at last he was under hostile fire. For days—indeed, for months—he had been worried internally by a great doubt. Would he be a funk? He was in a frightful funk lest he should be one, and to him this was a matter of great concern, though he mentioned it to no one, not even to Smoky. He wondered whether his cobber was affected in the same way, but thought not, as he was so keen to get to the front. So he had felt a little ashamed. Well, anyhow, now he was entering the danger zone, he experienced no abdominal sinking, such as one might expect under these circumstances. His mind was relieved; and, with the full joy of life, he turned with interest towards the steep hills.

Bells clanged below and the engines stopped and reversed, and, with a seething of water, the destroyer lost way. Out of the darkness loomed several unwieldy lighters, splendidly admiralled by a slip of a middy. They came alongside and the men swarmed aboard. The lighters moved lumberingly beachwards. From above, the firing grew loud, and a falling bullet wounded a man—the first casualty. Men stood silent, or spoke in subdued murmurs. The whole thing was weird, yet beautiful—the still glory of the night, the eerie, echoing rattle from above, and the flickering lights of the bivouacs.

They grounded at last alongside a stranded barge, crossed it, and, filing down a plank to the shore, gathered in ragged line along the beach to await orders. What was expected of them that night, none knew. A few of the earlier arrivals, not too fully occupied with work or sleep completely to ignore them, welcomed them warmly, and immediately launched into long-winded accounts of previous fighting. With an air of conscious superiority, they gave them hints and advice, and told vividly of trials, troubles and dangers. All this the new-comers accepted unchallenged and with deep respect.

The narrow beach, or those parts of it not occupied by great piles of stores, or limbers and water-carts, was a seething mass of humanity and mules. Few of the men spoke, beyond a welcoming "How do, cobber," or a "Glad you've come, mate." They appeared out of the darkness and passed into it again with an air of steady practical purpose. Ant-like, they passed in continual streams from barges to stacks of boxes, whose size rapidly increased.

At length the brigade filed off along the stony beach to the left, halted frequently, while stray bullets passed with a low whirr overhead and out to sea; and turned finally up a deep ravine to the right.

On the steep, scrub-covered sides they were ordered to bivouac for the night. Things were not too comfortable, but that was no cause for complaint. Mac and Smoky forced themselves under a holly bush, enveloped themselves in their oil-sheets, and braced their feet against stems of shrubs to prevent their sliding down the fifty degree slope. There was no cessation of the firing, and, in this ravine each report reverberated from one clay cliff to another in ringing, resonant notes. There were no other signs or sounds of fighting—only this musical din coming from the starry vault above.

The trooper thought a terrific battle must be raging, and pitied the poor fellows in the trenches. He learned later it was just Abdul's normal method of spending the night when he had the wind up. These sounds were not disturbing, and soon the cobbers, for the first time, were asleep under fire.